a Roman family of wealth and founded one of the aristocratic houses of the Roman State.  We possess some details respecting the incomes of the Papal nephews at this period, which may be of interest.[75] Carlo Borromeo was reasonably believed to enjoy revenues amounting to 50,000 scudi.  Giacomo Buoncompagno’s whole estate was estimated at 120,000 scudi; while the two Cardinal nephews of Gregory XIII. had each about 10,000 a year.  At the same epoch Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, enjoyed an income of some 25,000, his estate being worth 60,000, but being heavily encumbered.  These figures are taken from the Reports of the Venetian envoys.  If we may trust them as accurate, it will appear by a comparison of them with the details furnished by Ranke, that Gregory’s successors treated their relatives with greater generosity.[76] Sixtus V. enriched the Cardinal Montalto with an ecclesiastical income of 100,000 scudi.  Clement VIII. bestowed on two nephews—­one Cardinal, the other layman—­revenues of about 60,000 apiece in 1599.  He is computed to have hoarded altogether for his family a round sum of 1,000,000 scudi.  Paul V. was believed to have given to his Borghese relatives nearly 700,000 scudi in cash, 24,600 scudi in funds, and 268,000 in the worth of offices.[77] The Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of Gregory XV., had a reputed income of 200,000 scudi; and the Ludovisi family obtained 800,000 in luoghi di monte or funds.  Three nephews of Urban VIII., the brothers Barberini, were said to have enjoyed joint revenues amounting to half a million scudi, and their total gains from the pontificate touched the enormous sum of 105,000,000.  These are the families, sprung from obscurity or mediocre station, whose palaces and villas adorn Rome, and who now rank, though of such recent origin, with the aristocracy of Europe.

Sixtus V. died in 1590.  To follow the history of his successors would be superfluous for the purpose of this book.  The change in the Church which began in the reign of Paul III. was completed in his pontificate.  About half a century, embracing seven tenures of the Holy Chair, had sufficed to develop the new phase of the Papacy as an absolute sovereignty, representing the modern European principle of absolutism, both as the acknowledged Head of Catholic Christendom and also as a petty Italian power.

[Footnote 75:  Sarpi writes:  ’In my times Pius V., during five years, accumulated 25,000 ducats for the Cardinal nephew; Gregory XIII., in thirteen years, 30,000 for one nephew, and 20,000 for another; Sixtus V., for his only nephew, 9,000; Clement VIII., in thirteen years, for one nephew, 8,000, and for the other, 3,000; and this Pope, Paul V., in four years, for one nephew alone, 40,000.  To what depths are we destined to fall in the future?’ (Lettere, vol. i. p. 281).  This final question was justified by the event; for, after the Borghesi, came the Ludovisi and Barberini, whose accumulations equalled, if they did not surpass, those of any antecedent Papal families.]